David Perkins says Barnsley's win over Middlesbrough was 'massive' but insists the Reds have to focus on stopping the flow of goals against them and improving their away form if they are to move up the Championship table.
The Oakwell club have conceded 29, this term, more than any other club in the Football League while only Crystal Palace and Sheffield United have also lost every single away match.
Perkins said: "We are conceding too many goals and we're addressing that. We won against Middlesbrough but we conceded another two goals which we're not happy about.
"The other thing is that our away form is not the best. I think our home form has been pretty good, performance-wise. We've won two at home now and we should have won against Charlton and Reading. But we need to get better away from home because we can't just rely on our home games to keep us up. We're really looking at our away form and the amount of goals we are conceding."
Perkins has been playing in a central midfield two with new signing David Fox – his former Colchester team-mate – whose arrival, along with that of Jack Butland and the emergence of Paddy McCourt has coincided with an improvement in Barnsley's form in the last month. Fox's arrival and a change to 4-4-2 has meant central midfielders Kelvin Etuhu and Stephen Dawson have dropped to the bench.
Perkins said: "There's been a lot of chopping and changing, especially in my position, but the lads out of the team are going to keep working hard and fight to get back in."
